


Bars

by INMH



Series: The Fruits of Mercy [17]
Category: The Order: 1886
Genre: Dungeon, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Violence, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:41:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26153608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Isabeau walks the catacombs.
Series: The Fruits of Mercy [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/785652
Kudos: 3





	Bars

**[-The Twentieth of November, 1887-** ]  
  
Sometimes, Isabeau walked through the catacombs.  
  
She had never been especially interested in the catacombs before Grayson’s arrest. She had known that captured Lycans and Rebels were brought to the dungeons in the catacombs for their high-security nature, but that sense of security had been brutally destroyed after Grayson had managed to break out, and then back in the night that he had killed the guards, torn up Tesla’s lab and, and…  
  
Isabeau cringed, shut her eyes, and braced a hand on the damp stone wall.  
  
She didn’t like to think of Alastair’s last moments, down in the dank, artificial light of the laboratory. When it came to mind, she tried to redirect to happier times: Alastair teaching her to ride a horse, Alastair reading in the library, Alastair the day he became Knight Commander…  
  
…Anything but the laboratory.  
  
But it was coming on a year from the whole catastrophe, and Isabeau could not help but think of it. They had never even found Alastair’s body, because Grayson- for some baffling reason- had stolen it. The mystery of it bit at her: What had Grayson done? He had confirmed himself in July that he _had_ killed Alastair, but he had not said how. Was there something in the manner of Alastair’s death that would have given some terrible secret away?  
  
“Perhaps,” Lafayette had posed quietly one night, “He did not want you to see Alastair’s body. Perhaps he thought it would be better if you remembered him as he was.”  
  
Isabeau had snorted. “If Grayson gave any care for my feelings, he wouldn’t have betrayed us and run off with the very same Rebels that killed Perce- Sebastien. That killed Sebastien.”  
  
Lafayette seemed unoffended by the mistake, offering a limp shrug. “Whatever you like, Isabeau. I was merely suggesting that Grayson was displaying mercy, in his own way.”  
  
“The real mercy would have been refusing to murder my brother.”  
  
Lafayette had stayed silent after that.  
  
There had been a massive effort undertaken, following the incursion, to seal off any tunnels that might allow an intruder to sneak into Westminster the way Grayson had- sneak, of course, was a somewhat improper term given that he had really come charging in with guns blazing. Those first few times she had come down to the catacombs following the incident, the smell of blood clung to the walls and the floor; with no ventilation, odors had a way of sticking around. There had still been stains on the stone as well, and sometimes Isabeau thought she could still see them- sometimes it was a trick of the light, and other times she could not discern a blood stain from the other muck one tended to find in such a place.  
  
Isabeau traced a path to the cell that Grayson had been kept in, the cell he would have likely died in had his death sentence had had a chance to play out. She had thought it cruel at the time, to drag it out like that; more merciful would have been a quick beheading. But the Order had its traditions, and their unique method of execution was one of them. And so for weeks she had numbly gone about her business, knowing that Grayson was suffering and dying yards somewhere beneath her feet.  
  
Now Isabeau wished Grayson had been beheaded for an entirely different reason: If he’d died quickly, he would never have had a chance to return and murder Alastair.  
  
Isabeau could hear voices echoing in the hall, probably guards chatting while on-duty. But then, they did also have more prisoners than usual: The upped patrols and raids in London proper and the surrounding areas had produced Rebels and Half-breeds- or at least, people with sufficient evidence to suggest that they were allied with either. Sometimes when Isabeau was on one of these walks, she could hear them screaming or crying in their cells. She said nothing, never made her presence known, but did occasionally stop and listen as they begged and pleaded for mercy, for leniency, sometimes even for their mothers. _Scum_ , she had thought once when a man they had found to be smuggling guns for the Rebels howled in pain, bones cracking. _Wretched, vile, traitorous scum._  
  
This was why she didn’t make herself known: Isabeau’s temper reached wild and vicious heights where Rebels and Half-breeds were involved, and she could not trust herself to stay calm and uninvolved. Rebels had killed Sebastien and then turned Grayson, who had then killed Alastair. Half-breeds were an older, deeper wound that opened up every time she looked into a mirror and saw the still-vibrant scars on her neck, collarbone, and chest; and, more recently, when she woke up in a cold sweat thinking that her back was broken again.  
  
No, it was best for Isabeau to keep some distance.  
  
She feared she would be tempted to join in, and that was not a Knight’s job.  
  
Isabeau strolled past the cells, arms behind her back. Shadows moved away when she approached, perhaps afraid that she meant to take them to another torture session, or to their deaths. _If that I could,_ she thought, temper simmering as she considered that many of these people had been the ones Grayson had abandoned the Order for, betrayed them and murdered Alastair for.  
  
“Please…”  
  
Isabeau froze, turning her head.  
  
A dark figure stood at the window of the cell on her right. She thought it a man at first, but a closer look revealed a woman, thin fingers clutching the bars on the small window. “Mercy,” the woman whispered, voice hoarse and weak. “ _Mercy_ , milady, please.”  
  
Isabeau’s eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to ask whether the woman was a Rebel or a Half-breed, and then decided that it did not matter. She walked up to the window, getting as closer as she dared (the woman’s hands would not fit, not without some serious working and finagling, but she could still scratch). The women’s faces were inches apart, but the woman in the cell did not retreat. Up close, her eyes were frightened and desperate.  
  
“I have no mercy for you,” Isabeau whispered, voice a venomous hiss that would have once sounded so foreign to her ear. “None. You are exactly where you should be.”  
  
The woman shrank back, retreating into the dark recesses of the cell.  
  
Isabeau drew back as well, and took off at a brisk walk down the hall, ignoring the guards that tipped their heads in her direction.  
  
She checked the cells.  
  
She checked the tunnels that had been blocked off.  
  
She wandered the halls until she was satisfied that everything was under control, and then returned to Westminster.  
  
Isabeau would check in again soon, just in case.  
  
-End


End file.
